[QCWA] Re: Morse vs cellphones

[Jeffrey D Angus]

A friend of mine wrote privately:

> I found it rather "silly" that those two had to dress-up as old Western
> Union operators for the program.

Actually, I thought it was a nice touch. Sure, a bit silly, but it 
seemed in
keeping with the "This technology is 170 years old."

> I spoke to fellow hams.. It seems that it would have been better if a ham
> was shown sending code across the world to another ham.. perhaps a
> CW contact with one in the US military in Iraq or Afghanistan.. It would
> have been more "spectacular" to say the least (and have that televised)..

Spectacular? Probably not. Boring? Yes. The first reaction would have
been, "Geeze, why bother with all that when you could just call them?"

During Viet Nam, Barry Goldwater ran phone patches into the country
for people to talk to the soldiers. That was 40 years ago (already.)
Even then, most people didn't know about it.

All in all, I thought ti was great that the guys sending and receiving 
Morse
Code beat the cellphones. The only reason they did was that damned
pseudo keyboard on the text entry. You could see the poor schmuck
trying to enter the keys fast and sweating not knowing just where the
"old farts" were in their message.

It's showmanship. I think in and of itself, it introduced MORE people to
Morse code, and in a positive light hearted way, than anything that most
hams have done any time recently.

I'll see your $0.02 and raise you an IOU. ;-)

Jeff

-- 
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
"A life lived in fear is a life half lived."
Tara Morice as Fran, from the movie "Strictly Ballroom"